Apple Should Bring Windows Phone’s Live Tiles to iPhones

The next major iOS version is expected to bring widgets to the iPhone, according to some recent findings, technically turning the home screen into a more dynamic place for the installed apps.

As many long-time iPhone users know already, the iOS home screen has barely evolved throughout the years, and quite a lot of people criticize Apple for the lack of customization that users are provided with despite paying over a thousand dollars on a new iPhone.

But by the looks of things, the Cupertino-based tech giant has got the message, so iOS 14 will come with a substantial improvement in this regard, bringing widgets to the home screen.

While many believe this is actually just another way that Apple copies Android to improve the iPhone, it’s actually more of a natural evolution of the widget concept on iOS.

At this point, widgets are available in a dedicated screen that we can access by swiping right on the home screen – I, for one, absolutely love this feature, as it lets me quickly check quite a lot of apps for content updates, including WhatsApp, SofaScore, Weather, and Airly.

So technically, this means widgets let me get updates from apps without actually opening them. And if this sounds familiar, it’s because the very same concept has powered Microsoft’s live tiles that were once used in Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile and which are still available in Windows 10 on the desktop.

As a matter of fact, Microsoft is believed to be looking into dropping live tiles in Windows 10, as the reported usage is rather low. People seem to prefer a more static Start menu, and the adoption of live tiles has been low anyway, as they are only supported for apps published in the Microsoft Store.

While Apple bringing widgets to the iPhone home screen is clearly welcome news, what the Cupertino-based tech giant should do is embrace the live tile concept and improve it even further for its smartphone.

A concept that someone created to imagine a widget implementation in iOS 14 also envisions an approach very similar to the live tiles, and there’s no doubt Microsoft’s invention would fit Apple’s plans for the iPhone just right.

Furthermore, given Apple’s commitment to the iPhone, mixed with how deeply involved developers are in the iOS ecosystem, there’s no doubt a live tile-like implementation could easily succeed. And at the same time, such a feature would really come in handy, especially as Apple’s purpose is to make the experience on the iPhone feel more dynamic.

Microsoft itself had several ideas to improve the concept of live tiles, including an exploding version that would have allowed us to interact with this tiles without launching the apps. For example, the new live tiles were supposed to include additional controls, such as playback controls for music apps, which means users could play and pause music even without opening the app.

This is something that Apple could do as well on the iPhone, and at the first glance, it aligns…